


and then all at once a subtle fire races inside my skin

by refuted



Category: Orange is the New Black
Genre: F/F, Femslash February, Fluff, i'm sorry i just really like obsessing over idle coupley things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-12 18:55:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13553505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/refuted/pseuds/refuted
Summary: There are small declarations in everything Piper does, a meticulously placed crumb trail of hints that all lead back to her.





	and then all at once a subtle fire races inside my skin

**Author's Note:**

> look this has been sitting in my google drive since june and it's femslash february so go, be free my stupid fluffy fic.

An off-day, quiet and calm and blissfully uneventful. Piper flips through an old magazine with her; between ripped and missing pages, they find dresses they could never afford on women who don't even look real, all empty smiles and airbrushed perfection. Alex doesn't even really pay attention to most of them, but Piper seems to enjoy it so she behaves for the time being.

She traces a path with her eyes, from Piper's lips and up, stealing the moment to gaze for a short while as Piper busies herself with bridal fantasies and wedding wishlists. The corner of Piper's mouth twitches up, just a little, like she notices the attention. She doesn't comment on it.

"This one," Piper says instead, matter-of-fact, as she meets her eyes and points at a gown with a train twice the length of her cell and a price tag to match.

Alex snorts involuntarily, before she can consider whether the comment was meant to be serious. It earns her a nudge against her shoulder and a half-hearted glare, for which Alex atones with a "sorry" and the ghost of a kiss against her cheek. Piper leans into it; forgiven.

 

Alex rediscovers a love for _Alice in Wonderland._ Someone tells her it was one of Poussey's favorites; she isn't sure if the urge to borrow it comes because or in spite of this. The paper is worn thin, almost translucent with time and riddled with dirty little cartoons along the margins of every couple of pages.

She likes getting lost in Alice's world.

These days, she's taken to fantasy to keep her mind busy, coaxing it away from an ever quickening countdown.

Beside her, Piper sets her magazine down to chatter about Carol's offer to find her a job when she gets out, something about a friend of a friend and an owed favor, and Alex doesn't know if she's telling her all of this because she likes the idea or if she's offended by it.

"It'll be nice, not to have to worry about that," Piper says. "Can't imagine employers lining up to hire a convicted felon."

She rests her palm along the inside of Alex's thigh, idly stroking arcs with her thumb.

(Sometimes, she'll use both hands to make gesture at the air and the absence feels more acute than it ever has before.)

Alex has the day seared along the back of her mind, an hourglass that continues to run its course when she closes her eyes at night. An expiration date.

Their time is limited, and Piper never seems to directly acknowledge this.

Instead, Piper tangles their fingers together and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear and looks at her like she wouldn't rather be anywhere else. These are her favorite moments, just along the border of forgetting about it and knowing it's only temporary, maybe.

Alex commits them to memory, for safekeeping and eventually, for company.

 

There are small declarations in everything Piper does, a meticulously placed crumb trail of hints that all lead back to her.

Piper beelines to Alex's bunk after work every night, a new routine they've somehow agreed on without saying so. She imagines an apartment in Queens. Rat infested and moldy, with shitty water pressure to boot and the all fixings of a felon's first home away from home.

"I'll work my way out of it," she tells her, looking up at Alex as she lays across her lap. Alex runs a hand through her hair, absentmindedly wrapping her fingers around strands of blonde as she thinks of all the people Piper could fall in love with next. Piper kisses her hand, her wrist whenever it drifts close enough, and Alex feels a little foolish for brooding over it so much.

"When you get out, I'll have saved my way to a cushy place in," she pauses, mulling it over. "Well, probably still Queens."

Alex raises a brow. "Don't strain yourself."

"Once you're out I get to be the trophy wife and you can just work for the both of us."

She scoffs dramatically, holding back a smile as Piper smacks her chest with the back of her hand.

She does like the way _wife_ sounds though.

 

At lunch, Piper asks Red what her favorite recipes are.

Piper likes Chinese takeout and delivered pizza. Piper likes room service and Alex ordering them room service.

(Makes her think of hotel rooms in cities Piper could never pronounce correctly.

Of Piper, hiding naked underneath silk sheets while Alex slips into a robe to tip delivery boys who blush at the tangled blonde hair peeking out and onto the pillows.

Letting their chow mein grow cold as Piper bites the inside of her arm to keep quiet, fisting Alex's hair as she works her tongue along the inside of—)

Well.

Piper doesn't really know how to cook. And really, neither does Alex, but they never needed to know how.

Red looks at her like she's angling at another scheme, narrowing her eyes like she's waiting for Piper to explain herself. Eventually, she shakes her head and shuffles off, returning with her own prison fashioned cookbook. Under the table, Piper rests her hand on Alex's knee and squeezes, using her other hand to flip through the pages. She shows interest in the mac and cheese, which neither of them can possibly screw up, right?

Red tsks at Piper when she lingers too long on the intricacies of boiling macaroni elbows, reclaiming the cookbook and opening it to a recipe for stroganoff. The spine cracks open obediently and Alex notices where the ink has faded around some of the instructions. Red gazes down at her little stroganoff sketch with more fondness than she thinks she's ever seen and that frightens her, a little.

"You can make this for me when I visit," Red declares, before fixing Alex with a look like she's exacting a promise from her. "You. Make sure she knows how to do this right before that happens."

Alex swallows dryly, nodding once.

Red takes the book again to find another Piper-capable dish, murmuring something she can't understand. She thinks she might be making fun of them, but that's alright.

Alex looks at Piper and she smiles back.

More than alright, really.

 

Library privileges are restored, eventually, and Alex takes advantage of the first book she finds that doesn't make her want to slit her wrists.

"Tell me about your favorite books."

Piper flips through her raggedy wedding magazine for the umpteenth time, tracing over her favorite dresses like she's willing them to materialize. Alex has three of them memorized, so clear in her mind that she might even be able to trace them out if she could draw for shit.

She's never been much of a dress kind of person.

At least, not much of a walk-down-the-aisle-to-commit-to-one-person-forever kind of a dress person, but a suit doesn't feel quite right either. Briefly, she pictures herself marrying Piper in skinny jeans and flannel and almost snorts at Piper trying so hard to look supportive but failing wonderfully.

From the corner of her eye, she can see Piper watching her expectantly.

Alex hums. There might have been a question at the start of all this.

"I can join a club," Piper says. "I'll write you about how cultured I'm becoming. And maybe try and push my new hypothetical friends into reading something you like, so I can write you about how cultured _and_ relevant I'm becoming."

"Uh." Hmm. "I don't know."

Piper closes her magazine and shifts along the mattress so her legs are draped over Alex's lap, back leaning against the edge of the bed frame. Alex adjusts accordingly. "Nothing comes to mind?"

Alex shrugs. "I can't remember the last book I read out of prison."

"And prison books don't count."

"They're fine. It's just, they remind me of prison."

Piper doesn't roll her eyes, but she does tilt her head and sigh. "You're so fucking broody, Vause."

 

"I'll tell them it's that one Agatha Christie book."

Alex raises a brow, but doesn't disagree.

 

She's so close.

So _fucking_ close but she can't come and she feels like screaming.

Piper works her fingers, patient and resolute as she drags her teeth down Alex's neck, biting down at her pulse point. Alex can feel the sweat soaking through her clothes, can taste herself when Piper licks into her mouth.

Piper's fingers curl and curl and hit all the right spots but she can't fucking come, and jesus she is trying _so_ hard. 

"Hey," Piper whispers, slowing but not stopping. "Look at me."

Alex doesn't even realize her eyes are so tightly shut until she opens them, blinking through the blur as she takes a breath and meets Piper's steady gaze. She smiles that stupid, knowing and calm and just for Alex, unfazed Piper smile. "It's alright."

"I can't— _fuck."_

Alex slams her head back against the bathroom stall and swallows hard, digging into Piper's shoulders. She's going to start sobbing soon if she _can't—_

"Hey, hey." Piper kisses her, slowly, deeply. Piper kisses her again and again as her fingers continue to work wonders inside her, and Alex thinks she might actually be fucking crying a little. "Relax, Al. Don't think about anything, just—

_There._

—let me take care of you."

Okay.

Okay.

 

Piper makes a list of dogs she likes. "Medium sized ones," she murmurs into the back of her neck, arm tossed around Alex's hip and palm resting flat against her stomach.. "Like a Border Collie."

"I always figured you for a Pomeranian kind of girl," Alex mumbles through half-sleep. "Purse dogs you can show off to your WASP pals."

Piper nudges her from behind, but otherwise ignores the comment. "Something big enough to scare off a burglar but, you know, not so big that it could maul me."

Alex imagines Piper, trying to walk first mutt she finds at the shelter, mentally arguing with herself about picking up dog shit or sneaking off around the corner.

(She tries not to think too long about the people who'd stop to pet him, charming Piper with their dog loving smiles and steady lawful jobs and lack of prison stench.)

"...hey." Piper's fingers tap along Alex's stomach. "You haven't fallen asleep yet, I just got here."

Alex hums quietly, taking Piper's hand and pulling it up to her chest. "So maybe not a Saint Bernard."

Behind her, she can hear Piper huff.

"I need a dog that won't try and walk _me_." She places a kiss at the base of her neck. "Who can play rough with you when I'm napping or something."

Alex puts the pieces together and they paint a nice picture.

 

Piper breaks her into little pieces every time she leaves.

Alex Vause doesn't do attached, but Piper manages to slip through her carefully crafted barricades and make every ounce of her crave Piper. Piper leaves, and Piper leaves, and Piper leaves, and Alex comes undone.

It feels different this time.

Piper looks at her like she's leaving on a trip and knows where her home is. Piper kisses her and hugs her and tells her she's all in.

Alex comes undone, but the pieces are easier to stitch back together this time.

(She isn't sure if this is because of practice or something else.)

 

In a Starbucks, in the middle of the day. Piper runs her finger along the rim of her latte, uses her wooden stirrer to swirl whipped cream around and around. She dutifully recounts her experience so far with her honest, boring, biweekly direct depositing job and it's a sight she's never really cared for until now.

Like Piper writing down a list of groceries and forgetting it on the counter, or Piper sneaking off in the middle of an SVU marathon to answer an email from her boss.

Lately, she realizes, she's noticing the little things.

Could be the just released from prison second chance vibes that she still hasn't managed to shake.

Piper steals a sip from her coffee and grimaces. "They have real half and half here you know."

Alex reclaims her cup. "I've gotten used to this."

"You also got used to sleeping without a mattress. Doesn't make it better."

Under the table, Piper rests her foot against Alex's. Piper looks at her like they hadn't even been apart, like they're just going to pick up where they left off.

It feels weird to be out and it doesn't.

It's nice.


End file.
